In this week’s episode, I’m sharing an important tip that will help you get assistance with any problems or issues with your Google Business Profile. Support is notoriously slow (and sometimes not very helpful), so it’s much better to post on the Google Business Profile forum – but there’s a bug in the system that sometimes filters out posts. This week’s video explains how to be sure you’re sharing enough detail to get help without tripping the spam filter.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Welcome back to another episode of Local Search Tuesdays. This week, I’m sharing a simple tip that will help you get better assistance with any problems related to your Google Business Profile.

In the past, I’ve mentioned that one of the best ways to get help with problems related to your Google Business Profile is to create a post on the GBP Community Forum. The easiest way to get to the forum is to go to bit.ly/gbp-forum.
It’s a public forum that’s staffed by volunteers that know a ton about Google Business Profiles, and once a volunteer answers enough questions well, they get invited to be a Product Expert. I’m a gold level Product Expert and spend time every week helping various people with their problems.

Those of us who are higher-level Product Experts have the ability to escalate posts directly to the internal Google Business Profile team – effectively skipping general support and going right to the internal team.

Any time you’re hitting a roadblock, it’s best to go to the forum – especially if you’ve contacted GBP support and the answer doesn’t help or doesn’t make sense.

Most of the time, people who post in the forum don’t realize that it’s not staffed by Google employees, and they assume that someone can see into their account to know what’s going on. Since the Product Experts can’t access anyone’s accounts, we typically have to ask the poster to share more information before we’re able to help or escalate to the GBP team.

Unfortunately, the spam filter in the forum will often see the requested information as spammy, which causes the posts to get filtered out. So today, I’m sharing an easy workaround that will help you get help faster when you post on the forum.

When you create your post, keep it as simple and short as possible and don’t include any information about your business. Include only one link in your post – a link to a public Google Doc.

In that Google Doc, include:

  • Your business name
  • Your business address
  • A link to your website
  • A link to your Google Business Profile – when you go to the GBP dashboard and click on your business, just copy the link and share it.
  • Any other related links – other department listings, duplicate listings, other spam listings, links to specific reviews – whichever links are necessary to see the full picture of what’s going on.
  • A detailed description of what’s going on – it helps to include screen captures
  • If you’ve connected with Google Support, include your case ID number and what support told you. The ID number will be the long string of numbers in the subject line of the first email you got back from Support.

Again, make sure that Google Doc is public, so anyone with the link is able to view the document.

Now, you’re able to post on the forum and share all the details necessary to get help – without any worry that your post doesn’t show up because of the spam filter.

That’s all the time we’ve got left for this week’s episode, so you know what that means.
Put your hand on the screen right here:
We totally just high-fived ‘cause you learned something awesome.
Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you again next week for another episode of Local Search Tuesdays.